In addition to providing a sense of smell, the human olfactory organ, or the nose, also serves to clean, humidify and heat the air flowing through the nose. Hair within the nasal passages retain small particles, and the mucous wetted tissue adds moisture to the air and warms cold air before it arrives in the lungs. Sometimes, a person experiences a reduction in the amount of air that can flow through the nose due to a nasal airway obstruction, for example, as a result of a deviated septum. When the skeletal and cartilaginous wall, the nasal septum, that divides the nasal cavity into two equal passageways, thereby enabling air to be drawn in, is displaced, partial blockage of one of the passageways can result. Therefore, the free flow of air is impeded through one or both of the passageways. Other nasal airway obstructions may be caused by allergies, sinus infections, or other causes of mucosal congestion such as congenital abnormalities, or trauma. Some people will experience the collapse of a nasal passageway on one side during sleep due to flaccid muscles. Regardless of the cause, even a minor obstruction of the nasal airways can hinder free breathing and thus adversely affect not only a sleep period, by causing it not to be restful or contributing to snoring, but also impair daily activities, when a person is at rest and breathing at a normal rate.
One approach currently used to address the problem of providing temporary relief of nasal airway obstruction employs a banded nasal dilator that includes an elongated band, which wraps around the back of a user's head. Each end of the band includes a face pad having an adhesive portion that is adapted to connect to the user's cheek. However, this nasal dilator does not enable the user to easily control the tension in the band so as to vary the force applied to keep the nasal cavity open, to enable easier breathing. In addition, the band that wraps around the user's head may be susceptible to displacement caused by the user's head rubbing it against a pillow, if worn overnight, for example, thereby inadvertently varying the force that tends to open the nasal cavity. Also, a user may not need to dilate both nasal airway passages. However, Scoggin's dilator is clearly designed to dilate both nasal airway passages and is not readily modified to only dilate one nasal passage.
In another known approach, an elongated substrate is used that has a top and a bottom surface and a pressure sensitive adhesive disposed on the bottom surface. A resilient member is bonded to the substrate to provide a gentle expanding force to the nasal wall tissue when the dilator is adhesively attached to the nose. However, this dilator also does not enable a user to selectively adjust the amount of dilation of the blocked nasal airway passage. Also, this dilator will dilate both nasal passages, thereby not allowing a user to correct only one airway obstruction.
The foregoing examples of related art and limitations arising therein are intended to be illustrative and not exclusive. Other limitations of the related art will become apparent to those of ordinary skill in the art upon reviewing the disclosure that follows below.